£250m Pirate Treasure ‘Stolen’ by Americans

The treasure hunters who recovered gold and silver worth an estimated £250million from a shipwreck off Cornwall spirited their haul to the United States in an apparent attempt to stop Britain staking a claim.

In a highly secretive operation, American firm Odyssey Marine Exploration worked on the wreck of an English ship, believed to be the 17th Century Merchant Royal, less than 40 miles from the British coast.

But Odyssey carefully avoided landing their treasure on UK soil.

If the 17 tons of coins, gold ornaments and tableware had been brought ashore, Odyssey would have been obliged to inform the Government’s Receiver of Wreck, which would probably have impounded the haul, triggering a potentially lengthy legal row about ownership rights.

Instead, the trove was secretly moved to the tax haven of Gibraltar. Odyssey then chartered a jet to take hundreds of plastic containers brimming with coins to the United States on Thursday, where they have been analysed by Nick Bruyer, an expert in antique coinage.